


Send Him Back Again to My Mother

by cheshireArcher



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, The Boar's Head, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7141643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshireArcher/pseuds/cheshireArcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Boar's Head receives a visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Send Him Back Again to My Mother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caelidra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caelidra/gifts).



"Francis! The door!" 

"Anon anon!" Francis hurriedly filled another pint of ale and ran to the pub's front door, hearing his employer, Mistress Quickly, call. 

It had been a slow day at the Boar's Head, made slower by the loss of several of its regulars. First Falstaff. Then Bardolph and Nym. Then Doll. Finally, the boy that had served as page to Falstaff and later on went to the war in France. Francis tried to escape the cold feeling that these deaths gave him but he couldn't. Now it was just him, Ralph, Mistress Quickly, and her husband Pistol. 

Francis nearly fainted when he opened the door. Standing in the street was a tall, handsome gentleman in a leather jacket, holding a bundle. 

"Your majesty," Francis babbled, bowing. 

"Good evening, Francis," the man said, stepping into the pub. 

It was just as he remembered, all old wood and the smell of sack and the sort of low-class camaraderie that came with the territory. The Boar's Head had, so long ago, been his home. 

Mistress Quickly was clearing a table when the man had entered, now she stood, shocked, in the middle of the room. As the man, still clutching the bundle to his chest, turned around, she dropped to her knees. 

"Your highness," she said, just as shocked as Francis. 

"Oh, Hostess," King Henry the Fifth said, kneeling down in front of her and raising her to her feet, awkwardly balancing the bundle, "don't bow to me."

Francis still couldn't believe it. Ten years later the man who had once been a wastrel named Hal was back again at the Boar's Head, now the king. He did indeed command all the good lads of Eastcheap- he commanded the whole kingdom. 

Henry wasn't dressed in his royal finery and he was unaccompanied by any attendants. He looked older, the very image of a mature leader, with a strong posture and a face hardened by war. Dressed in the same leather jacket as he'd always worn, Francis could vaguely see him as the boy who once tortured him at work. That boy was long gone, replaced with the king.

"What are you doing here, your majesty?" Mistress Quickly asked, trembling. 

Henry held out a hand to her, looking into her wrinkled face, kindly and strong as it had always been. He felt a wash of affection. Mistress Nell Quickly had always been like a mother to him. She tentatively took his hand and he kissed it. "Please, don't be so formal," he said, looking from her to Francis. He then looked down at the bundle in his arms, then back at Mistress Quickly. 

He gently unfolded the blanket the parcel was swaddled in and Francis leaned forward, curious. The king revealed a tiny, sleeping baby, no older than a few months. The king, after gazing lovingly at the child, looked up at Mistress Quickly. "I wanted you to meet your grandson."


End file.
